The Shelter of the World

I found this short story very entertaining and I think it left an interesting question regarding the creator and the created.

I think that maybe Jodhabai is the emperor's conscience since she was the one who told him how to improve his reign and she was the one who had most power in the castle after the Emperor himself.

Throughout the first chapter I found a hyperbole when it narrated that not a single noise could be made throughout the whole town when the king was at home." A cart wheel that squeaked could earn the cart’s driver the lash, and if he cried out under the whip the penalty could be even more severe. Women giving birth withheld their cries, and the dumb show of the marketplace was a kind of madness."

I wasn’t surprised or entertained that much by Rushdie’s game with words for example:"...meant to be a being in the world, any being; such a being being, after all, inevitably a being among other beings, a part of the beingness of all things." and "...as Akbar, meaning “the great,” and latterly, in spite of the tautology of it, as Akbar the Great, the great great one, great in his greatness, doubly great, so great that the repetition in his title was not only appropriate but necessary in order to express the gloriousness of his glory..." I think that he should have avoided these impractical games and continued narrating his story.

I found a similarity between this short story and Candide because in both you could find paradoxes. Akbar himself was a very paradoxical and contrasting character since he was "A Muslim vegetarian, a warrior who wanted only peace, a philosopher-king: a contradiction in terms. Such was the greatest ruler the land had ever known." Even the author points out Akbar’s contradictory character throughout the text.

I thought it was very funny how Akbar's servant always answered him yes to everything and when Akbar started saying lots of insulting affirmations the servant answered yes. On the other hand, I think that it must have been very frustrating to know that, although the servant could read his lips, and often did, wasn't willing to talk to him. Aside from this, I believe I didn't understand correctly but if I did, I'm very unpleasantly surprised because Jdhabai apparently was just Akbar's reflection on a mirror which meant he was in love with himself.

I didn't like the end of this story since I thought it needed further development; there were too many descriptions, too many things left to be explained. Was Jodhabai able to continue living? What happened to the empire?